Re: [Phys-l] Get Aggressive On Global Warming

["Richard Tarara" <rbtarara@sprynet.com>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chuck Britton" <britton@ncssm.edu>


> Is anyone interested in CO2 sequestration?
>  (being tried in some Scandinavian country IIRC)
I hope so.  That is what looks to me to be the most promising of any short 
term schemes for reducing greenhouse gasses.  Solar, wind and biomass are 
not going to be able to take over the load from the fossil fuels (currently 
90% of energy supply world-wide).  They can help but as my yearly student 
project shows, trying to turn just the oil and natural gas usage over to 
renewables involves millions of large wind generators, 10s of thousands of 
square miles of solar collectors, 100s of thousands of square miles of 
farmland and trillions of dollars of capital expenditures.  The fact that 
there is probably enough fossil fuel for 2-300 more years (at about double 
today's cost) and the fact that the infrastructure is already in place for 
its use, suggests that figuring out how to use the stuff with minimal 
emissions is probably a more prudent way to go at this point in time.  Doing 
so will give us enough time to either pare down the world population to 
something that can be sustained with acceptable damage to the environment or 
else to really figure out some new energy source--maybe even fusion (was it 
this list where somebody described fusion as 'The Energy of the 
Future--always was, always will be!"

Rick